


Departure

by raiining



Category: Arrival (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, in which I fix everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 17:23:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8587309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiining/pseuds/raiining
Summary: de·par·turedəˈpärCHər/Nounthe action of leaving, typically to start a journey.  "the day of departure"synonyms:leaving, going, leave-taking, withdrawal, exit, egress, retreat"he tried to delay her departure"a deviation from an accepted, prescribed, or traditional course of action or thought. "a departure from their usual style"synonyms:deviation, divergence, digression, shift





	

**Author's Note:**

> I probably don't need to say it, but: SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE SPOILERS FOR THE MOVE SO MANY SPOILERS OH MY GOD
> 
> Seriously, this is an AMAZING movie that RUINED me. Please go see it first!
> 
> (and then come back and read this because if you're anything like me YOU WILL NEED IT)  
> (I wrote this fic in the car on the way home from the movie. yes. yes, that is a thing that I did)
> 
>  
> 
> Beta'd by the always wonderful Desert_Neon. All remaining mistakes are mine!

They’d played by the river that morning. Louise had gone to bed with Hannah’s voice in her ear, quietly noting that her father now treated her differently.

 

In that moment, Louise had hated Ian, but it’d passed. It always did. Louise knew that she’d chosen this future knowing the consequences. 

 

He hadn’t.

 

She still saw things in spurts, though. Glimpses. Sometimes a memory would come upon her and catch her unawares. That’s the feeling that woke her half an hour after midnight. She lay in bed, heart pounding, before finally getting up and going downstairs.

 

She was brewing a pot of coffee when the knock came at the door. She knew before she opened the door that it would be Ian standing there, hair wild, something feverish in his eyes.

 

 _Drugs?_ she’d thought. She couldn’t tell if she was thinking it now or remembering it. But, _no._ He hardly even drank. He’d never do anything to risk his precious brain.

 

She opened the door. Ian was there, just as she’d known he would be. He did something next that she hadn’t expected, though, something that she hadn’t foreseen.

 

He pushed a book into her hands.

 

“Teach me,” he said. His voice was pleading, that combination of desperate, belligerent, and still arrogant (always arrogant, _always,_ even now) fervor that she knew so well. 

 

“Teach me,” he repeated. The desperation was quickly becoming an angry sort of defiance. “You’re the expert, so teach me how to know.”

 

She looked down at the book. It was her book, ‘To Hannah,’ printed on the inside. “How to know what?”

 

“How to know what you know,” Ian said. 

 

She’d tried. Louise thought that was why she’d written the book in the first place, because you couldn’t just _tell_ people that a mysterious language taught to you by aliens could help you see the future. That would be seen as crazy. But you could write a book about their language — which everyone expected her to do anyway — and then you could leave hints inside that book, and let people discover the truth for themselves.

 

She wondered how many people who read it would understand. She wondered what kind of power she’d unleashed upon the world.

 

_In three thousand years, maybe you’ll understand._

 

Was that a memory or a thought? Louise hardly knew anymore.

 

“I read it,” Ian said, forcing her back to the present. He always did that, it was one of the reasons she’d loved him. Still loved him. “I read it, but I didn’t— I _almost,_ but I didn’t. Couldn’t. You can help me. _Please._ ”

 

“Why?” she asked. She had to ask. “It’s the future, it’s going to happen, why do you—?”

 

“The future can be changed,” Ian said. He had that bone-deep conviction back, that arrogance. “Has everything you’ve ever seen always come true?”

 

Yes. “I saw you leaving me,” Louise said. She tried to state it calmly, but she couldn’t. His leaving her had _hurt._ She’d known it was coming, but it had still broken her to the core. She didn’t want to think about what that said about her future. 

 

“And we can talk about self-fulfilling prophecies later,” Ian said. She could tell that he’d wanted to snark it, but he’d held himself back. He was proving a better person than she. “But did you see me coming back?”

 

She hadn’t. She’d never seen this moment. Or had she? She’d woken up before he’d arrived, after all.

 

“I don’t know,” Louise admitted.

 

“Then _teach me,_ ” Ian said again. He stepped forward. “I can help you. Together we can fight this, work around this. You say our daughter has an incurable disease. Okay, have you brought her to a doctor yet?”

 

“You know I haven’t,” Louise said. It was one of the things they’d fought about, that day before he’d left. He’d wanted proof. Louise hadn’t been ready for it yet. 

 

“Fine, but do you know exactly what disease she has? Do you know its scientific name? Do you know if it’s single-gene or multiple-gene dependent?” The arrogance had dimmed in the face of overwhelming urgency. She could hear his want — his _need_ — for answers. She could hear his love for their daughter in his voice. “You tell me it’s incurable, but I want to know _why._ ”

 

Louise stared at him. “You want to change the future.” She shook her head. “Ian…”

 

The anger returned. “You don’t think it can be done.”

 

She’d never seen it happen. “I didn’t want you to leave.”

 

“But you accepted it when I did,” he challenged. “I saw it on your face, just like I’m seeing it now.” He was still standing on the step. They were on the edge of outside, the wind cool on her face. “You get this look, this glassy-eyed acceptance.” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “I _hate it._ ” 

 

Louise gasped. She’d never been afraid of him, but she felt something like fear grip her now. Fear of him, or fear of the future? At least the future was something she knew. He was threatening to change it again.

 

Could one fear hope?

 

His fingers dug into the meat of her arms. Louise could feel him trembling. 

 

“Let me help our daughter. I’ll go mad if I don’t. Let me help, or try to help. _Please,_ Louise.”

 

She couldn’t help but laugh. A memory rolled over her: the three of them, on a bright day in early spring, twirling around the living room while laughing. _Jeez, Louise; jeez, Louise_ Hannah had chanted. Ian had laughed and laughed and twirled her again. _Jeez, Louise._ ”

 

Ian ran his hands up her shoulders to cradle her head. He stared at her, his gaze boring into her own. “That,” he said. “Teach me that. Teach me to do what you just did there.”

 

She swallowed. She wanted to, she realized with a shock. She wanted to. She felt so alone. 

 

“Okay,” she said.

 

 

*

 

 

Louise still cried when the doctor pulled her into the corridor to tell her the diagnosis. Louise remembered crying even as she stood there with her face in her hands. Did she cry because she remembered it? Or did she cry because that’s what you did when you’d been told your daughter was going to die?

 

She hadn’t remembered Ian opening the door behind her, though. She hadn’t remembered his arms sliding around her. 

 

“We can fight this,” he said. He was trembling again, but there was hope in his voice. He’d started talking to geneticists, after all. “Louise, we can fight this — together. As a family. You’ll see.”

 

She did. She’d never looked beyond her daughter’s death, had never wanted to, knew somehow what she’d see. Herself alone, likely with a bottle, Ian gone and Hannah gone and herself alone, always alone, alone again after all....

 

Ian had changed that future, or maybe it’d always been a possibility after all. 

 

“If you want science, you should ask your father,” Louise said. Hannah huffed and walked upstairs. Ian was there, working on his latest thesis. Louise knew that, but didn’t know that. “Non-zero sum game,” she said, still trapped halfway between the past and the present. “Non-zero sum game.”

 

 _Everybody wins,_ she thought. She watched Hannah smile and go back upstairs. Dr Nguyen had called that morning. The early results were promising. 

 

Everybody wins.

 

 

*

 

Of course, the future can’t be changed. 

 

Louise still ends up lying beside her daughter. Hannah’s hair is gone and she needs oxygen to breathe. Louise is crying, because she remembers it and because that’s what you do. 

 

Hannah is only sleeping, though. She’s not dead.

 

_Not yet._

 

Louise has a flash of memory. An older Hannah, with a boy in her arms, and a girl behind her. “Hi, Grandmama!” the boy shouts. The girl ducks behind Hannah and hides. Elle is at the age where she’s always making shy. Navan giggles, though, and throws himself forward. Louise catches him. “Did you bring me treats?”

 

“Hey,” Ian says. 

 

Louise blinks and looks up. Ian looks tired, but he’s holding two cups of coffee. He hands her one. “How is she doing?”

 

“She’s asleep,” Louise says. She stands up from the bed, because she doesn’t want to spill coffee on it. Not again. “She looks comfortable, though.”

 

“The early report from the stem cell transplant look promising,” Ian says. He’s said this before, multiple times, but it will still be a while before they know if Hannah’s body has accepted the treatment. “The best thing for her is rest.”

 

“I know,” Louise says, because she does. 

 

Ian smiles. “Yeah, but you still like it when I remind you.”

 

“I do,” Louise admits. She walks over to him, leans into his shoulder. “You know that I do.”

 

 

*

 

 

“Of course I brought you treats,” Louise says. Her hair is grey but she’s smiling. Navan’s grin is infectious. “Of course I did.”

 

 

 

 

~ The End


End file.
